Powered by fjord: Norway's new datacenter

Datacenters use massive amounts of energy. Cooling them requires even more of it. So why not use natural resources to ease the pain?

Norway's Green Mountain Data Center is doing just that. The facility plans to use cold water from a nearby fjord to cool its computers.

It's not the only natural feature of the facility, either: the datacenter is located inside concrete buildings within caves carved into the side of a mountain on the island of Rennesoy. What is already naturally cool will be even cooler once the 46-degree-Fahrenheit (8-degree-Celsius) fjord water comes into the picture.

Norwegian shipping firm Smedvig, IT services firm ErgoGroup and utility company Lyse Energi are behind the project, located in halls once used as a storage area for NATO ammunition.

The project will begin construction in January, with a phase that encompasses 75,000 sq. ft. of space.